Generally, vehicles are equipped with an on-board power source such as a battery for performing critical vehicle operations including, but are not limited to, starting the vehicle and powering on accessories of the vehicle. The battery source supplies power to an electrical system configured in the vehicle when the power generator of the vehicle such as an alternator is idle or when the power generator is not able to supply power as per the electrical load demand.
It is a common occurrence that, the user or driver may exit the vehicle without switching-OFF one or more accessories of the vehicle. The one or more accessories which are in ON condition drain power from the battery, even when the vehicle ignition is at OFF condition. In such conditions, the battery may be drained completely or may render it to drop below a pre-set voltage which may degrade health of the battery. Such situations may lead the user to be unable to crank the engine using the battery, thereby has to manually crank the engine i.e. by jump-starting the vehicle, which in many scenarios is undesirable.
Conventionally in the art, the battery may be connected to a current or a voltage sensor. The sensor monitors the power remaining in the battery and power utilization/drawn by each of the accessories. A control unit interfaced to this sensor, generates an alert signal to alert the user or driver of the vehicle about battery condition of the vehicle, when the power utilization surpasses a preset limit. This process, therefore enables the user to switch OFF the accessories manually. Further, in some existing technologies the control unit may also switch OFF the accessories which are inadvertently ON during vehicle ignition OFF condition. This process enables to automatically switch OFF the inadvertently ON accessories of the vehicle.
However, power monitoring systems as described hereinabove utilise power from the same battery for which the monitoring needs to be carried out. This configuration of the power monitoring systems results in additional power drain, apart from that of the already connected accessories. Due to the additional power drain, the battery source may not be able to supply current up to the pre-set current limit and therefore the sensor connected to the battery may give out error readings regarding current consumption to the user.